1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a computer for aiding determination of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and more particularly to a method and a computer for fast aiding determination of OSA.
2. Related Art
Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a kind of disease that can cause sleep disorders, and is common in the middle-aged. When sleeping, the upper airway of a sufferer (comprising the nasopharynx, oropharynx, and laryngeal) recurrently collapses and obstructs, thus resulting in apnea, sleep fragmentation, and decreasing in a degree of blood oxygen saturation. In addition to the sleep interruption, the patient also may have accidents of angina pectoris, myocardial infarction, or brainstem stroke, or even sudden death during the sleep.
In the traditional diagnostic method, the patient needs to go to the sleeping center of a particular hospital to receive a polysomnography (PSG) physiological test to view the sleep quality. However, since the related medical resources are limited (especially in rural hospitals in remote areas), patients have to wait in line for a long time, and the scheduling waiting period of the patients may be three to six months. During the test procedure, the patients need to sleep overnight in the designated sleeping center to obtain sleep data of eight hours. In addition, follow-up analysis of the PSG data further takes time for the diagnosis. Therefore, the traditional diagnostic method is very inefficient, and is limited by specific surroundings.
In addition, because the patient has to be monitored by an electronic instrument in specific surroundings, the accuracy of the PSG data may be reduced because of various physiologic factors of the patient (such as anxiety, tension, or excitement). In addition, the PSG test only can provide an Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI) of the patient. However, it is not accurate enough to determine whether the patient suffers from the OSA just based on the AHI. The AHI is a combination of apneas and hypopneas per hour during the sleep. Generally, the situation that the airflow through the mouth and nose stops for more than ten seconds is defined as the apnea, and the situation that gas exchange is reduced by 50% or more for more than ten seconds is defined as the hypopnea. Therefore, the PSG test has defects of high variability and low reliability.